“No, the big one that’s hiding.” Then he got his feet under him and stood. “Maybe your eyes aren’t very good.”

“My eyes are spectacular.”

“Behind those curtains,” Diamond said, pointing with his working arm.

King stepped past him. Perhaps his vision wasn’t great, or maybe he wasn’t in the mood for this game. Either way, it took the creature a moment before he stopped seeing only the camouflage. That’s when he discovered a long sleek contraption that dwarfed the wheeled vehicles behind them. Curiosity dragged him a few steps closer and then he paused, intrigued but not wanting to be. Finally King forced a laugh. He sounded human and he sounded otherwise, and he looked back at the little creature that he had already broken twice.

“That’s a papio wing,” he said.

“What is a papio wing?”

“It’s a machine that flies. Except it can’t stay up for long, and these shitty beasts don’t have half enough to courage to launch them.”

The wing looked like a fletch ship, except the ship had been squeezed to a tiny dense body. Maybe it swelled up when it was filled with hydrogen gas, or maybe not. But Diamond was impressed with its sleek contours and the bright corona scales fixed over its skin and that a hungry toothless mouth below with a single glass eye above. There wasn’t room for more than one papio onboard the wing, and just looking at the marvel caused a hundred new questions bubble out of his tired head.

“Impressive,” he said.

“You want to be impressed,” King said. “Let me amaze you.”

Diamond turned.

And King grabbed the Master’s knife by the hilt, driving the keen steel blade up underneath one of the big scales on his chest. Flesh and bone put up a hard struggle, but the arm was powerful enough to push past the resistance. Then the creature released the knife, the hilt hanging in the air, and he laughed and the lower mouth spat up bright purple blood. “Clipped an artery, by the way this feels,” he said.

Voices called out from a distance.

Diamond turned away from his tormentor.

The old papio couple was walking towards one of the wheeled machines. The old woman appeared even frailer than before, but she managed a steady pace as her companion held her closely, lovingly. They were talking, but those weren’t the voices that Diamond could hear.

He broke into a slow, slow trot.

A string of humans emerged from the stunted forest. The Archon was with two of his men, and there was the Master and Seldom and Elata. Father was trailing, holding Mother by her hand while he dipped his head, speaking quietly while she stared at her son.

Diamond ran faster.

King jogged up beside him, spitting purple blood at the boy’s feet.

Diamond stopped.

“Don’t run away from me,” said King. “Because if you run again, I’ll grow bored chasing, and somebody will abuse those old people of yours.”

“No,” Diamond said weakly.

“Believe me,” said King. “It would take very little to rip the arms out of that slayer’s shoulders.”

With his good hand, Diamond grabbed the exposed hilt and yanked the knife free.

“Are you ready to cut me?” King asked.

Diamond said nothing, cleaning the wet blade against his trousers and wrapping it inside the old leather. Then he put it under his shirt again, this time on the right hip, and he trotted close to the two papio.

King was relaxed, victorious and happy. The contest had gone perfectly, and he was the champion of the world, and running beside Diamond, he certainly didn’t expect the defeated boy to shove him from the side, shoving him high while pushing hard with both legs.

The creature fell onto the runway’s surface.

“What was that?” King asked, laughing. “That was nothing.”

But then the old papio woman shuffled close to him. Once again, she said the word, “Careful.” And then those old jaws opened wide, and she calmly bit King hard in the face.

FOURTEEN

Mother couldn’t look happier or sadder. Diamond came close, and she pulled herself out of Father’s hands, starting to run, long arms raised high even before she reached her son.

Sobbing, gasping, every fatigue showed in her face. She hadn’t slept for two moments since the night before last, and her features were worn and thrilled and sick with worry, and they were beautiful. The best arms in the world grabbed hold of his shoulders, shaking him. “Why didn’t you stay home?” she asked.

Her voice was furious, but she smiled as she berated him.

She took hold of his broken arm, asking, “Does it hurt?”

“No,” he began.

But she interrupted, asking, “Do you know what kind of risk you took, coming out of your room, looking for us?”

Diamond smiled at her smile.

“But I found you,” he pointed out.

She hugged him and wept, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

Father stopped short. The Master stood beside him, and they glanced at one another, saying nothing.

Elata and Seldom eased past the two men.

“Stay here,” Nissim warned.

Seldom stopped, but Elata took one more step.

“It caught you,” Seldom said.

Elata reached back, poking Seldom with a finger.

Then the Archon arrived, flanked by two bodyguards wearing pistols. A grim, important sneer defined his face as he walked past Diamond and past the two papio. Speaking to King was the first task—angry and quiet words, almost inaudible, were delivered in one breath—and King did nothing. He remained motionless. Then the human grabbed one of the spikes and tried to shake his son, and King still did nothing, standing rigid, never moving, resembling a statue carved from some bright golden species of coral.

Exhausted by their trials, the old papio continued on.

The little doctor had just emerged from the trees, standing in the distance, dancing on nervous feet.

The Archon turned, walking back toward Diamond.

“I have a confession,” he said with that singsong voice. “I never imagined you’d travel this far or fast on your own. My sense of these things was that you wouldn’t find the courage to come out of that room until afternoon.”

“You unlocked the door,” Diamond said.

“An assistant did.” The man clucked his tongue. “No, you aren’t as timid as promised. And who would have guessed that you’d find a butcher with time and the inclination to help an orphan?”

“What does ‘orphan’ mean?” asked Diamond.

“It’s a boy who has been cast aside,” the Archon said. “By Fate or design, his parents have been lost forever.”

Mother straightened her back. “He is not an orphan, sir.”

“He is and King is.” The Archon was close enough to touch her and Diamond, and one of his hands rose, as if considering doing just that. But then it dropped again, and he said, “Madam, you were the boy’s guardian. But to my mind, the dead Creators were solely responsible for this child. They built this miracle when they built the world, but there wasn’t any place for him. Until now. His immortal body floated beside the sun, which is the beginning of all life, and a corona ingested him but could never make him into a meal.”

“What is this?” the Master asked. “I don’t know that legend.”

Diamond took a step backward, and then another.

The Archon offered him a wink. “There’s no way to know how long you floated inside that awful gut, waiting to be found. Waiting for the Fates to place where you needed to be. But I credit Happenstance and the other Fates for everything. For King, for you. For every blessing, including making such an enormous journey on your first day in the world.”

Then with his reaching hand, Archon motioned to King, and the statue turned into an armored boy again, coming forward to stand beside his foster father.

“I’ve heard rumors,” the Archon continued. “Tales about other children being cast from the belly of that enormous beast. I’m not a fool, my boy. What happens once can always happen again, and I know when a man is being blessed, and I am not a soul who ignores opportunities.”